Optical networks are used to transmit voice, data, multimedia, and other forms of communications. As the quantity and quality of these communications have increased at significant rates, optical networks have grown. Significant numbers of client devices (e.g., routers, storage devices, content servers, etc.) have been deployed at the edges of the optical networks. As a result of these communication trends, considerable demands have been placed on traditional optical networks.
A common complaint involving services over conventional optical networks is that the services take too long to provision. It is not uncommon for clients to experience activation times on the order of weeks to months for certain high-bandwidth services (e.g., digital signal level 1 (DS1), digital signal level 3 (DS3), STS3, and so forth) because conventional provisioning techniques require many steps. For example, to create an end-to-end path, a network operator designs a path between its endpoints and configures each node on the path for all required pass-through and add-drop cross-connects. This conventional provisioning process is time-consuming, labor intensive, and error-prone. Further, as the path changes over time, redesign and reconfiguration are typically required, which will cause service disruptions.
Because conventional provisioning of bandwidth over traditional optical networks takes significant time, clients (e.g., enterprise users) often request and purchase enough bandwidth to handle the clients' peak communications needs. This translates into the clients paying for more bandwidth than is needed at non-peak times, but the lengthy time that it takes carriers to provision services over traditional optical networks has dictated this practice of paying peak bandwidth prices during non-peak times. Thus, because of the limitations of conventional provisioning techniques over traditional optical transport networks, many clients using the traditional optical transport networks end up paying for peak levels of bandwidth during off-peak times (e.g., weekends for business clients).
Emerging network technologies are providing opportunities for improving conventional optical service provisioning and management techniques. For example, emerging new-generation synchronous optical network (NG-SONET) technologies and next-generation optical transport networks with control planes are providing increased network control at the network layer. However, these emerging network technologies have not been fully realized, integrated, or implemented in the context of supporting full-service, widely flexible, on-demand bandwidth management applications.